


Happy Father's Day!

by yaustalla333



Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's 8, Ocean's Eight
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-08 03:44:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15234609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaustalla333/pseuds/yaustalla333
Summary: Debbie and Lou are finally ready to become parents (to more than 6 grown women who cannot take care of themselves in the real world).Basically the beginning of a family story that I can't stop thinking about because watching this movie ruined my whole ass life I can't think about anything else. My boss is concerned and my crops are failing. I love babies.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s a normal early morning in the loft, Debbie and Lou seated at the island in the kitchen sharing a plate of blueberry pancakes, wedding rings sparkling on their fingers as they eat slowly, switching between joking and talking and kissing and taking turns feeding each other from the one clean fork since it was Daphne’s turn to do the dishes and she hadn’t quite gotten used to doing chores yet. 

 

They were the only people awake in the loft, as it usually was. Debbie would wake up ridiculously early, a habit she had picked up in prison, and after a long shower (even after two years she was still incredibly grateful for everyday she woke up to hot water), Lou would roll out of bed and always try to interrupt her wifes getting dressed (with about a 75% success rate, thank you very much) or follow her downstairs and make them some breakfast. And just like any other day, after their plate was cleared they placed it in the sink, sharing one or two or eighteen more kisses before Debbie left to run errands like grocery shopping, meeting up with Danny’s old team, running recon of her own, or meeting with her parole officer Darlene, whom she hated. 

 

As always, Lou tried her hardest to distract Debbie. It was like a fun game they were  _ always _ playing, seeing if one could distract the other from going about their daily activities. By the end of the day, one of them had usually won at least twice. This morning, however, Debbie seemed more determined to get out of the loft than usual. Sensing this, Lou put an end to their game and gave her wife a casual goodbye without too much trouble. Just as she was about to walk out the door, Lou called out: 

 

“Babe, aren’t you forgetting something?” With a smirk on her face. 

 

“I knew that was too easy.” Debbie replied playfully, turning on her heel and walking back into the foyer before planting an emphatic kiss on her wife’s lips. 

 

“Well, Baby,” Lou started, a little dazed and a little breathless but still with her signature confidence. “I meant these.” She said, gesturing towards the black wallet and the metro card (a gift from Constance) in the hand that was not planted at the base of Debbie’s neck. “But thank you, that was much appreciated.” She finished, smiling before leaning in for one last quick peck, before slinking back up the stairs and into bed, as she always did when Debbie left for her errands. 

 

It was early in the New York afternoon when Debbie made her way back to the loft, the heat of mid June getting just strong enough for the sun beating down on the concrete to make a girl a little uncomfortable. The whole gang was finally awake when she got back, Constance and Nine Ball were still in their pajamas--or maybe that was just how kids dressed these days, sometimes Debbie honestly couldn’t tell. 

 

“Got any new jobs for us out there?” Rose asks, somewhat skittish as always. She’s the first to address Debbie, but the others make small noises of inquiry on the subject of Rose’s question.    
  


“Have you put any thought into my plan?” Constance asks, rolling her eyes when Debbie quirks  a confused eyebrow at her question. “My plan to lift the new baby tiger from the Bronx Zoo.” She clarifies, huffing. “You never listen to my ideas.” 

 

“Constance, that’s a terrible idea.” Tammy says, for some reason still sounding a little appalled that something so wild would come out of their friend’s mouth. 

 

“A baby tiger could definitely still kill you.” Amita adds, unhelpfully. 

 

“Plus the Bronx Zoo has way more security than the Met.” Nine Ball adds, smoke coming blowing through her mouth and nose as she talks. “250 pounds of security in the African Bird section.” She clarifies, once again finding a way to work her oddly specific fear of ostriches into another debate about a job. 

 

Debbie sticks around for another few minutes, listening to the girls debate the plausibility of sneaking a tiger out of the Bronx Zoo, and whether or not Constance could survive and ostrich attack. She makes little effort to put her input (for the record she totally believes Constance could take an ostrich. She’s scrappy), especially not after she finds blue grey eyes on her from across the room, where Lou perched on the back of a chair, also offering no input in this trivial conversation. She bites back a laugh as Lou rolls her eyes, silently questioning how they found themselves in this situation before cocking her head slightly towards the stairs. Lou nods and Debbie slowly backs out of the room, before walking up the stairs to their bedroom, knowing Lou is right behind her. 

 

She places the bags she’s accumulated down on the bed before moving to get everything settled, changing her shirt into something more suited for warmer weather when Lou manages to slip away and enters their room. 

 

“Sometimes I wonder if this is really the most successful jewelry thieving team in the world.” Lou jokes, moving to wrap her arms around Debbie from behind. “How was your morning” Lou asks after Debbie laughs, brushing her mouth against the back of Debbie’s neck.

 

“Really good.” Debbie says, smiling before turning around in Lou’s arms. 

 

It’s a smile that makes Lou a little nervous. She’s seen this kind of playful smile from Debbie before, like when she was trying to convince her to lift 150 million dollars of precious jewels from the most secure museum in the USA. 

 

“What have you done now, Ocean?” She asks, eyes narrowing, searching Debbie’s for a giveaway. 

 

“What, I can’t just have a good day sometimes?” Debbie asks, her eyes twinkling with mirth and the same playful smile plastered on her face as she moves out of Lou’s arms and towards the bags on their bed, taking out a regular sized envelope and handing it to her wife. “I got you something.” She says, extending the envelope towards a skeptical pale hand. 

 

“Hmm, ‘got’ or ‘stole’.” Lou asks, accepting the envelope anyway, feeling a thick card on the inside. 

 

“I’m hurt, Baby.” Debbie feigns upset. “I paid for this present with my own money.” She says, failing to make the verbal connection that all the money she has is from their heist. “Besides, since when have you cared about our legal integrity?” She retorts, impatiently signaling for Lou to open the card. 

 

Lou finally gives up the act, carefully opening the card, sliding her finger across the fold in the back, keeping the envelope fully intact. A light blue card comes out, Lou holding it gingerly in her hands, immediately confused about the light cursive writing on the front. 

 

“Very funny.” She says slowly, still not fully understanding. “Did one of the girls put you up to this?” She asks, holding the card towards Debbie, ‘Happy Father’s Day’ written across the top, with a picture of a baseball mitt underneath it. It was a little funny, she supposed, but not really Debbie’s brand of humor. 

 

“Open the card.” Debbie prompts, playful smile gone, and the mirth in her eyes fading slightly as her eyes start watering. 

 

“Is something going to pop out at me? I don’t like being surprised.” Lou reminds her wife, who of course already knows this and rolls her eyes. 

 

“Will you please just open the card!” Debbie yells impatiently. 

 

“Well fine, since you asked nicely.” Lou answers matter o’ factly, smiling to herself when Debbie huffs loudly. She opens the card, and a neatly folded piece of paper falls out, revealing the words ‘Happy Fathers Day to a Great Dad!’ Which is a bit impersonal and generic for Lou’s taste, she wouldn’t even give this card to her own father and she fucking hated him. She starts to look up at Debbie, now feeling really lost, before Debbie’s impatience gets the best of her and she emphatically unfolds the piece of paper and places it back in Lou’s hand. 

 

The thin white printer paper displays the bloodwork of one Deborah E. Ocean, who is still type O positive, and has very high hCG levels. All of a sudden, Lou feels very lightheaded, and her eyes cloud up a little bit, mirroring Debbie’s who moves to take Lou’s hands in her own. 

 

“Debs....” Lou starts, and is grateful for once for her wife’s interruption. 

 

“We’re having a baby.” Debbie says quietly, pressing their foreheads together, smiling through the several kisses that Lou plants on her lips after she hears this confirmation. 

 

Downstairs, the girls have moved on to a full live action test of Constance vs Ostrich, with a combination of Nine Ball and Amita playing the ostrich and Daphne directing. It’s a ridiculous and loud production, but Debbie and Lou are glad the girls are distracting themselves, at least until their ready to tell them the news about their new little sister. 


	2. A Glimpse into the Life of a Pregnant Deborah Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and Gentlemen if you thought the Heist Wives were soft before just you wait and see what happens when Debbie gets pregnant.

Lou sighed as she woke up snuggled against her wife’s empty pillow, yet again. Debbie had been an early riser since her return from prison but ever since she’d gotten pregnant she’d been waking up at hours that Lou had never seen sober. 

 

Groaning a little, Lou stretched out and woefully glanced at the clock on her bedside table. 6:43 AM. As she shuffled out of bed, Lou considered somewhat grumpily what kind of pussy being so in love with her best friend had turned her into. Padding down the stairs in her silk robe, still half asleep, she wondered what her younger self would have said if she could see her now, getting out of bed before 10 AM for a  _ girl. _

 

Shivering slightly when she reached the last step, all Lou’s grumpiness at being woken by the absence of her partner dissipated when she lifted her head up and glanced into the kitchen, her heart warming at the sight of her wife tip-toed next to the counter, 5 month bump protruding through her now tight sleep shirt, reaching up to try and get a bowl from the overhead cupboard. 

 

Lou Miller had always liked to think that she wasn’t easily surprised. This was, for the most part, pretty accurate. She read people very well, and because of that she could almost always tell what a person might think or do next. This had always been the exact opposite of the case with Debbie. Ever since Deborah Ocean had come tumbling headfirst into Lou’s life twenty years ago, she had been full of surprises. Even know, when Lou was confident that she knew Debbie almost as well as she knew herself, she was surprised by her wife almost every day. Lou was hit with her first big surprise of the day like a bag of bricks, when she looked at her wife for the first time, tongue stuck out between thin lips in extreme concentration, fingertips waving to grasp at the cereal bowl on the top shelf: she was, yet again, even more in love with Debbie today than she had been the day before. 

 

“Looks like you could use some help there, shortstack.” Lou drawled, her sleepy voice sounding even raspier than usual. The tips of her mouth curled up in a knowing smile as Debbie huffed and turned around, bangs falling out of her loose ponytail and falling into her face. 

 

“I am  _ not _ short.” She protests, in lieu of a ‘good morning’. “You’re freakishly tall. And I would be able to reach if my center of gravity wasn’t the size of a cantaloupe and  _ kicking  _ me in the ribs every five seconds.” 

 

“Oh honey, we’re  _ weeks _ away from cantaloupe. Little Bruiser is only just a mango.” Lou smiles cheerfully, citing from the alerts she’d signed up for about what size fruit their baby was ever week and crossing the kitchen to move in front of her wife, separating her from the cabinets, cupping her face and delivering a proper good morning peck. “Rough morning?” She asks, her voice softening, as her fingers gently tuck Debbie’s bangs behind her ear. 

 

“Better now.” The brunette answers with a newfound softness of her own, eyes closing and hands wrapping around Lou’s wrists, keeping the comforting hands against her face. Lou answers by pressing their foreheads together, closing her eyes for a few moments and allow herself to properly wake up now that her wife is beside her. 

 

“Come on, sit down.” Lou says, breaking apart after a few moments and ushering Debbie over to a stool on the kitchen island. “Let me make you something.” She insists, smiling as Debbie rolls her eyes fondly. Even before she was pregnant Lou had always been on Debbie about her eating habits. Sometimes she looked forward to sneaking out of bed before Lou noticed so she could actually  _ enjoy _ her cinnamon toast crunch. 

 

“No eggs.” Debbie says, reluctantly, with a longing glance at the fun cereals on top of the fridge, knowing that what remained in the boxes would be gone as soon as the rest of the girls woke up. 

 

Lou, of course knowing already that eggs (the smelliest of the breakfast foods) had made her wife incredibly nauseous in recent months, had already begun getting out the ingredients for her signature cinnamon pancakes. 

 

Half an hour later, Lou sat back contentedly as Debbie leaned in her chair to sit against her at the kitchen table. 

 

“Mm. I think that was your best yet, Babe.” Debbie complimented, snuggling further into Lou’s neck. 

 

“You’re just saying that because I didn’t make you eat any fruit this time.” Lou teases, moving the arm she had resting on the back of Debbie’s chair to wrap around her back, pulling her in closer. 

 

“I thought you had just finally gotten the memo that I’m never going to eat a strawberry.” Debbie said, although a lot of her sarcastic tone was lost due to the tired mumble of her voice against Lou’s shoulder, and her audible whine as Lou gently pushed back her chair and got up to put their dishes in the washer. 

 

“Are you tired, Baby?” Lou asks, moving back over to the table after the dishes are away, placing gentle hands on her wife’s shoulders. 

 

“Almost always.” Debbie answers with a grumble. “I don’t want to go back to bed right now.” She continues, and Lou accepts this, leaning down and placing a kiss on her neck. 

 

“Alright, Honey.” She murmurs softly. “‘S’it alright if I stay with you, or do you want to be alone?” She asks, and Debbie smiles softly at how respectful her wife is of her needs and her feelings. 

 

“Stay, please.” She responds softly, looking up into Lou’s blue eyes and holding out her hands, a silent gesture for her wife to help her up. 

 

“Of course, Baby.” Lou answers, pulling Debbie up and wrapping her into a tight hug. “Anything in particular you want to do today?” She asks, after a bit. 

 

“Can we go for a walk?” Debbie asks, and Lou, who was whipped before Debbie got knocked up, is of course willing to go upstairs and get dressed and leave the house at 7:30 in the brisk September morning because Debbie wants to go out (although they end up leaving closer to 8, because getting dressed is always a distracting process when it’s the two of them). 

 

“What’s on your mind, Baby?” Lou asks, their joined hands swinging between them as they walk through Union Square Park. She waits patiently as Debbie finds a quiet bench for them to sit on, a distance away from the bustle of commuters cutting through the park on their way to work. She pulls Lou down next to her, bringing her hand in closer to fiddle distractedly with the rings on her wife’s finger. 

 

“What happens when our daughter finds out I was in the clink?” Debbie asks, abruptly after a while. It takes Lou by surprise for a moment. They’ve had a lot of talks like this, about how much exactly they want their kid to know about what they do, with the general agreement that honesty is the best policy. They’re not ashamed of who they are, and growing up in a house full of pickpockets and hackers, their daughter might just grow up to be the most gifted criminal on Earth (it is in her blood, after all). 

 

“What do you mean?” Lou asks, wondering what particular part of being in jail Debbie is worried about their daughter knowing, because so many parts of it were rough, and Lou knows she’s got the scars to prove it. 

 

“I mean everything.” Debbie laughs anxiously. “I mean the bad stuff, what do we tell her about what it’s like on the inside? She’ll ask about…” Debbie trails off gesturing slightly to her body, the long scar on her leg, the longer one on her rib cage. “And what about how I got in there? She’s gonna be so curious.” Debbie says, tears coming through. They’ve also talked about this. Soft voices in the middle of the night, talking about how brilliant and inquisitive they’re little girl will be. What she’ll look like, what a strong personality she’ll have. 

 

“It’s okay, Baby, breathe.” Lou coaxes, shifting a little bit to push her forehead against Debbies, moving her free hand to her wife’s back, rubbing gentle circles in between her shoulder blades. 

 

“How do I tell her about the most...humiliating thing to ever happen to me?” Debbie asks, desperation in her voice, looking at Lou with tears in her eyes. 

 

“Baby, listen,” Lou nearly coos. “Our little mango already loves you so much.” She says with certainty. “She loves when you talk to her, and when you sing to her because you think nobody’s listening.” She teases, earning a small sniffling smile from her wife. “And her and me, Baby, we’ve got it tough.” She continues. “I can’t wait to watch her love you more and more everyday, just like I have for the past twenty years. Even when she doesn’t think it’s possible anymore. She’s gonna love you so much even before she’s old enough to start asking questions that it’s not gonna matter what your answer is, I promise.” Lou says with conviction. 

 

“But it’s so embarrassing.” Debbie cries, shifting her head into Lou’s neck. “I can’t even believe you still love me.” She says, and now Lou rolls her eyes fondly, knowing that a mixture of Debbie’s hormones and lack of sleep have taken over her body. 

 

“Oh honey.” She says, kissing the tears on her wife’s cheeks. “Nobody can be strong all the time, okay?” She says, lifting Debbie’s chin up so she can see the sincerity in her face. “Becker, he was a sleazy con man, not one of the good ones.” She says, still holding her wife’s delicate chin in one hand. “And when you got out you came back at him a thousand times stronger.” She reminds her wife, eyes twinkling in reminder of what the brilliant mind in her fingers is capable of. “You’re gonna teach her so many important lessons, sweetheart.” She says, pressing a sound kiss on her wife’s lips. “Humility.” She punctuates with another kiss. “Perseverance.” Another kiss. “And love.” She says, eyes sparkling, waiting for Debbie to meet her eyes before delivering three more kisses, to get her point across. 

 

“You really think she’ll still love me that much?” Debbie asks, laughing a little as Lou peppers kisses over her tear streaked face. 

 

“I know it, Babe.” She promises, flashing a brilliant smile. “You care about her so much already, Little Mango feels that. That’s all she needs.” Lou says confidently. Bending down to press a kiss on Debbie’s growing bump. 


	3. At the Yankee Game?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The only normal family thing we ever did was Yankee games.” Debbie had recalled with a smile one night, covered by a sheet in their shitty one bedroom apartment. “Everything else was all about the hustle, but the Yankees, that was sacred.” She explained. “Me and Dad and Danny we went maybe three or four times a season, less after Mom..” she trails off there, and Lou skates her fingertips up her arm to clasp a wringing hand in understanding. “We would spend all day talking about the stats and who was getting fucked and who the most underrated players were. And then we would go to the games, Dad would actually pay for hot dogs and Pepsis. And we would just sit and watch.” She said, with a faraway twinkle in her eye, playing with the rings on Lou’s finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay FIRST OF ALL I've said before that it is literally painful for me to write Debbie (my mom) as a Yankee fan but sometimes you have to sacrifice personal feelings for character accuracy. ((in my head we argue all the time about how the Sox are in first place and they deserve to be there)). 
> 
> second of all I meant for this to be a lot more...action and baby based than it turned out but because I'm a baseball ho at heart I got a little lost in the setup but no worries more to come later xoxo

 

Only Lou knows how much prison has really changed Debbie. Tammy can tell a little, but it was Lou, not Tammy, who knew her so intimately before the clink, and ultimately its Lou who learns her again after. 

 

Some differences are big. She can’t sleep alone anymore. She has a huge scar on her right thigh, and she doesn’t want anyone to know about it, or touch it, except Lou. She sticks to a schedule, a routine. Eats three meals a day at roughly the same time, not so much snacking (except when she’s pregnant). All that shit. Under all that, she’s still the same Debbie, but a little harder, and a little softer all at once. 

 

There are the small differences too, the ones that could almost have been expected. She hates orange now, though she was never really too fond of it before. She doesn’t smoke, didn’t want to be dependent on anything. One of these more subtle changes takes a while for Lou to notice: she doesn’t care all that much about the Yankees anymore. 

 

It seems like a trivial thing, but anyone who would think that didn’t really know Debbie all that well. Lou, who didn’t really understand baseball (they don’t play in Australia), never really understood the thrill of the game that Debbie saw, and had generally spent the whole nine innings trying to get into her girlfriend’s pants, knew of course just how invested in the team Debbie was. 

 

“The only normal family thing we ever did was Yankee games.” Debbie had recalled with a smile one night, covered by a sheet in their shitty one bedroom apartment. “Everything else was all about the hustle, but the Yankees, that was sacred.” She explained. “Me and Dad and Danny we went maybe three or four times a season, less after Mom..” she trails off there, and Lou skates her fingertips up her arm to clasp a wringing hand in understanding. “We would spend all day talking about the stats and who was getting fucked and who the most underrated players were. And then we would go to the games, Dad would actually  _ pay _ for hot dogs and Pepsis. And we would just sit and watch.” She said, with a faraway twinkle in her eye, playing with the rings on Lou’s finger. 

 

That, of course, had been before. Before the fight, before Claude, before the slammer, but we’ll skip ahead. Lou didn’t necessarily like to think about those six years of her life. Now, everything was peachy. Debbie and Lou were married, they were millionaires, and they were about to have a daughter. Each of them was happier than they ever imagined they would deserve to be in their lives. It was the kind of shit that normal little girls dream about, but one thing was still bothering Lou. 

 

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been trying. She had even made  _ hot dogs _ one night before a game, turning the TV on right as the announcers were going over the starting lineups. The rest of the girls were a little horrified, especially because it was meant to be taco night, and because Debbie was jumping Lou’s bones before they even got to Giancarlo Stanton. 

 

Later that night, as Debbie slept as peacefully as she ever did nowadays curled up next to Lou in their bed, Lou considered this new phenomenon further, ultimately coming to the realization that she would have to do something she never could have imagined. 

 

The very next week, Lou presented all the girls with a mandatory invitation to the Yankee game that night. It was, supposedly, meant to be an exciting game against the Mets. Lou, of course, had secretly known this already, remembering one night many years ago when Debbie had said she preferred the Subway Series to the Sox/Yankees rivalry because in the Subway Series the Yankees always won. Some of the girls were excited, Daphne and Tammy apparently loved baseball, Nine Ball and Amita were among those who were willing to go to support Debbie, and Constance, hiding an excited grin, said she would only go if she could wear her Mets hat and Debbie and Lou bought her a hot dog and a vodka lemonade,  _ each _ . 

 

After compromising for two hot dogs and one vodka lemonade with Constance, Lou left the girls to clean up breakfast and went back upstairs, where an 8 months pregnant Debbie was folding little clothes in the nursery. 

 

“Hi Baby.” Lou greeted softly as she walked into the yellow room, running a hand along the white wooden crib (which had definitely not taken her seven tear filled hours to assemble), before wrapping her arms around Debbie from behind (as best she could, the woman was about to pop). 

 

“Hi Honey.” Debbie said with a smile, turning around in Lou’s arms and pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Why are you smiling like that?” She asks, eyebrow quirking at the expression on her wife’s face. 

 

“I’m just happy, darling.” Lou says, removing her hands from Debbie’s waist to take the light blue floral onesie out of her wife’s hand, folding it with reverence. “I can’t wait to meet her.” Lou whispers honestly. 

 

“Me either.” Debbie says back with just as much earnest, taking Lou’s hands as she places the garment in a pile of similarly folded onesies. 

 

“The girls are down there, talking some mess about the Yankee game.” Lou says, with feigned carelessness. 

 

“I don’t know, Baby, I feel like we’ve got so much to do here.” Debbie says, gesturing to the four walls around them. 

 

“We’ve got time, Debs.” Lou says, growing evermore concerned about her wife’s disinterest. “Baby, you love the Yankees! What’s going on up there?” She asks finally, pressing a kiss to her wife’s temple, revelling in the softness of her brown locks. 

 

“Is that what all this has been about?” Debbie asks, face full of realizations. “The hot dogs?” She asks incredulously, smiling a little at Lou’s sheepish expression. 

 

“What is it, Baby?” Lou asks again, after the pair falls silent for a bit. “Is it Danny?” She asks, as that had been her first assumption. Debbie sighs, allowing her wife’s fingers to caress her cheek for bit before answering. 

 

“No, it’s not Danny.” She says, and something about it makes Lou believe her. “He never really knew shit about the game anyway. Such a mansplainer.” She smiles, and Lou laughs with her at the newest term that Nine Ball, Amita, and Constance had been teaching them. 

 

“What then, Darling?” Lou asks, pressing a kiss to Debbie’s cheek after hearing another sigh from her wife. 

 

“I don’t know, Babe. I just feel like everything is different now. They tell you, in those stupid counseling sessions, that it’s scary to be confronted with how much things have changed while you’ve been stuck inside sometimes. I didn’t want that to be true.” She starts, tears forming in her eyes. “And for a while, it wasn’t.” She says, fully crying now as Lou guides her by the hands out of the nursery and into their room, shutting the door and sitting her wife down on the bed. 

 

“And for a while it wasn’t. Everything seemed like it was the same. You had the same haircut, and the same car. We ate the same shitty food.” She laughed wetly. “But after the Toussaint, it all came crashing down all at once. We were making love in a new house, in a new bed. They weren’t playing the Dixie Chicks on the radio anymore. Everybody has new phones.” She continued, still sobbing, as Lou rubbed circles on her back. 

 

“And it sounds so stupid, but it hurt the most that the Stripes had changed too.” She says, leaning her face into Lou’s neck. “They built a new stadium.” She hiccups, and Lou presses a kiss to whatever part of her head she can reach. “They traded Granderson and Cano.” she cries harder and Lou pulls her in tighter. “ARod and Jeter retired,” she lists off, and honestly Lou deserves a lot of credit for knowing who all these people are because she actually listened to everything Debbie said, committed every moment they spent together to memory. “The Red Sox won a World Series.” She says, getting so upset now she can hardly speak. 

 

“Baby, listen.” Lou says, rubbing gentle circles on Debbie’s back. “Change is scary, and that’s okay.” She says softly. “And you’re right, some things will never change. I’ll never stop loving you, Baby.” Lou promises again, with another kiss to brown hair. “And, the players may change, but the game is forever, Debs.” She says, mustering up her best little league coach ethic. “Plus,” she adds with a smirk. “I can teach you everything I know, Debs.” And Debbie, still sniffling a little, lifts her head up questioningly at that. 

 

“Well, I knew someone would have to keep you updated once you got out.” Lou says casually. “They’ve got some real talent this year, honey. This kid, Torres? People count him out quickly, but he could take even Chapman yard if he had to.” Lou concludes, and Debbie is now in too much awe to cry. 

 

“You learned baseball for me?” Debbie asks, looking at Lou incredulously. 

 

“Oh don’t worry, Baby.” Lou says casually. “There are still a lot of things I don’t quite get that I’ll need you to explain.” She coos, pressing a kiss into Debbie’s temple before standing up and walking over to their dresser. “While wearing this!” She exclaims, pulling out a striped navy and white jersey, with the yankees symbol on the front, and a stitched number “1”, underneath a navy blue “Mama” on the back. 

 

“Fine.” Debbie says. “I’ll go, because you watched for me.” She says, smiling sweetly with tear stained cheeks. “But I’m not wearing that.” 

 

Hours later, Debbie Ocean’s crew of misfits rolls up to the new Yankee stadium, Constance in her Mets jersey, Debbie grumbling about the heat and being too pregnant for this, glaring offhandedly every time someone compliments her custom jersey and asks how far along she is, leaving Lou to make up different funny responses for her. Her favorite so far is “Oh she’s getting there, she’s about 6 beers in.” 

 

They find their way to their seats, and by the second inning Constance has already asked about her hot dog 19 times, Lou’s been counting, but the look on Debbie’s face when the game starts, and Aaron Judge hits a mammoth home run (“wow, he’s tall, huh?”), is so worth it. 

 

And so finally, when Debbie starts yelling out to Giancarlo Stanton to “hit the ball like he’s worth half as much as he’s getting paid” (Lou had told her about the exact details of the contract earlier that day), the blonde is confident enough that her wife is having a good time to get up and get them (and Constance) their hot dogs. 

 

She waits in line for a few minutes, answering a call from Tammy when she’s a few away from the register. 

 

“Hey Tim Tam, tell Constance I’m ignoring her texts on purpose because I’m not putting the mustard on the bun, it’s ridiculous and too much work for--” she starts, but she’s quickly interrupted by Tammy’s frantic voice. 

 

“Lou! It’s not Constance, you should get back here right now!” She exclaims, and Lou hears the commotion in the background. 

 

“Tam, what’s going on? Is it--” Lou asks, moving out of line and looking up to navigate back to their seats. 

 

“It’s Debbie.” Tammy says, breathlessly. “Her water just broke.” 

 


	4. Allow me to Introduce...The Queen of Fucking Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> after Debbie goes into labor surrounded by her best friends and 54,000 other people at Yankee Stadium things take a turn for the criminal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plain and simple all I can say is I wish Sandra Bullock was my mom

For the first time in a long time, Lou runs through the crowd, paying no attention to the characters surrounding her. She almost gets lost, considering how she usually mapped her way by the people around them, but eventually she finds her way back to their friends, and her wife, who is just about hyperventilating. 

 

“Lou!” She calls out, extending her arm towards her wife as far as it will reach, grabbing onto her hand when the blonde meets her halfway. 

 

“I’m here, Baby, it’s gonna be okay.” Lou promises, trying holding back her own anxiety. 

 

“Our baby is gonna be born at a fucking Yankee game.” Debbie answers incredulously. 

 

“Relax, Babe.” Lou says calmly, finding her inner peace with whatever might happen next as the girls begin to usher them through the crowds. Even Yankee fans, as it turns out, are pretty sympathetic to a woman in labor. 

 

It’s not long before they find their way out of the stadium, Lou can feel Debbie’s hands shaking in her own. 

 

“See, Debs? It’s okay. Now we’ll just get in the van and--” Lou immediately stops short when she feels around for their keys in her pocket and finds only the metro card that she and Debbie share. Finally, she sees the true flaw in her logic. 

 

Seven pairs of eyes turn to Debbie in shock as their normally stoic leader stops in her tracks, catching onto the reason behind her wife’s sudden silence. 

 

“Our baby is gonna be born on the five train!” Debbie full on sobs now, hands grasping at whatever parts of Lou she can easily ground herself on. 

 

For a little bit, it’s abundantly clear that nobody really knows what to do. Lou, from a somewhat awkward position with her sobbing and extremely pregnant wife holding her by the neck and the jacket, cups Debbie’s face with her hands and tries to press comforting lips anywhere she can. She’s got a look in her eyes that says “well what the fuck now”, although her words are all soft and sweet “it’s gonna be alright”. 

 

The rest of the girls are too stunned to be of any help at the moment. Constance is quite literally frozen, a souvenir soda cup that she had somehow acquired in their haste out of the stadium halfway to her lips. Rose is quivering in anxiety, Daphne while trying to be comforting is not doing much better. Nine Ball looks like a perfect combination of shocked and downright scared, and Lou wonders for a second if this truly is the same girl who painted her toenails in the middle of the greatest jewelry heist in history. Even Amita and Tammy,  _ FENCE _ Tammy, who have known Debbie longer than anyone in the group besides Lou, seem either too stunned by Debbie’s emotional outburst or too time and resource crunched to come up with a proper plan. Either way, Lou knows this is on her. 

 

Still holding Debbie carefully, she turns to Constance and Nine Ball first. 

 

“Can either of you wire a car?” She asks, not really bothering to hide her sense of urgency anymore. Nine Ball shakes her head, but Constance manages a “hell yeah” after a few seconds. 

 

“Which one?” Constance asks, as the group makes their way through the parking lot, about as conspicuously as possible (which is not very, to say the least, as Debbie hits another contraction along the way.) 

 

“Doesn’t matter.” Lou says distractedly, helping the brunette through the pain. “Something fast.” She says, meeting Constance’s gaze with a serious look in her blue eyes. 

 

“Look! This one, over here!” Daphne calls out, and the whole group takes off towards where she’s pointing. 

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Lou sighs when they’ve seen that the actress has led them towards a fucking minivan. 

 

“What? This way we can all fit comfortably!” Daphne says, and Lou would glare at her if she thought they had the time to spare. She nods at Constance, who gets behind the wheel and gets to work while everyone else piles in. Debbie hits another contraction, tells Constance she had better hurry up before she delivers her baby on the poor girl’s Mets jersey, and a couple minutes later the engine is starting. 

 

“Got it!” Constance says cheering to herself, and the rest of the girls all cheer in agreement. 

 

“Great work. Now go!” Lou says. Constance pauses. “Hello? Can we step on it? We’re never gonna get to Mt Sinai if we don’t beat the dinner traffic on the bridge.” 

 

“I can’t drive!” Constance exclaims. The car erupts again, this time in a heckling chorus of what the fucks. “I grew up in Queens!” Constance exclaims, throwing her hands up. 

 

“Okay! Amita, switch with her!” Lou commands, balking at the sheepish expression on Amita’s face. “Can  _ any _ of you drive??” She asks, looking around, incredulously at the women she has  _ chosen  _ to surround herself with. 

 

“So help me God I will--” Debbie begins, but doesn’t finish as Rose pipes up from the back. 

 

“I’ve tried driving in the states twice. Didn’t end so well either time, what with the different sides of the roads and the steering and all, but they always say third time’s the cat’s hairball right?” She asks, and honestly nobody has a fucking clue what that means, but it’s either that or Tammy’s white suburban mom who forgot her contacts driving and if Lou let that happen Debbie might actually murder her. Scratch that, Debbie might still murder her if her contractions get any closer together before they get to the hospital. 

 

True to her word, Rose almost kills them all at least eleven times. I don’t mean “oh shit that was a red light” almost kills them. When she finally pulls up to the emergency vehicles only no stopping at any time section of the parking lot coming off the wrong side of a one way, Lou seriously considers kissing the fucking cement. Instead, she focuses all the energy that her body tells her is for puking on getting Debbie out of the car and into the waiting room. 

 

“Ma’am you need to move that car. It’s ambulance parking.” The nurse who first approaches them says, and honestly Lou feels a little bad for what’s about to happen to her. 

 

“Listen lady,” Debbie starts, and Lou almost wants to let her go for it, but she knows things will get done quicker if she cuts in. 

 

“We’ll move it.” She promises, turning around and giving a quick nod to TAMMY who squeezes Debbie’s hand once and then skitters away on her heels to find a quick parking spot. “My wife’s contractions are three minutes apart.” She explains, laying a comforting hand on Debbie’s shoulder as a nurse beckons for a wheelchair. “She’s only about 36 weeks, I--” She falters then, just for a second, looking down at Debbie, who’s looking up at her with a little fear in her eyes. 

 

“Ma’am we’ll get you all through this.” The nurse says with a reassuring smile. “Let’s get you up to the maternity ward” She says, turning on her heel and allowing Lou and Debbie to follow, the rest of the group close on their heels. The nurse turns around again as she realizes the size of the group behind her. “I’m sorry, I have to ask, are they all family?” She says, eyeing the diverse group of women. 

 

“Yes.” Debbie insists, covering Lou’s hand that lays on her shoulder with her own. “Immediate family.” She says, narrowing her eyes at the nurse who’s next line has just been stolen from her mouth. 

 

“Okay then.” She quips, “right this way.” And it’s tough for Lou to hold back a chuckle as she continues pushing her wife down the hall and towards the elevator. 

 

A more convincing nurse draws the line at the delivery room, which honestly Lou is a little thankful for. She loves all their friends, but she’s grateful for the peaceful moments she gets to spend alone with Debbie in between the contractions. 

 

It’s only a couple hours until Lou is pushing open the doors to the waiting room, and pulling down a surgical mask to reveal the brightest smile anyone had ever seen on her face. 

 

“Alright alright.” She says, drawing out the group’s attention as they all surround her asking a million questions. “Don’t you guys want to come meet your sister?” She jokes, a testament to how light she’s feeling. 

 

They’re technically allowed to go in four at a time, but honestly who wouldn’t bend the rules a little bit for Daphne Kluger and her friends? All six of them pile in, all stopping short but Lou, as soon as they see Debbie, who through the sweat and exhaustion is literally glowing down at the  _ tiniest  _ and  _ softest _ bundle in her arms. 

 

Lou, who looks down at her wife and daughter with an appreciation that seemed even more intense than Constance and Amita looking at pictures of Rihanna. She places gentle kisses on all their foreheads before looking back up to their friends in the corner. 

 

Debbie murmurs something in her ear that makes them both smile softly, before gently handing their baby over to Lou, who walks her over to the girls in the corner, her eyes never leaving perfectly round cheeks. 

 

“Everybody, meet Mia Daniela Ocean. The Queen of the Fucking World.” Lou says, with the proudest smile on her face. 


	5. The Queen of Fucking Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me: stories need plot and substantive dialogue otherwise they cannot advance the reader and have less value 
> 
> Me to Me: meaningless plotless fluff about Debbie and Lou and their baby?????

 

It was destined from the beginning of Mia Ocean’s life that she would become one of the greatest thieves of all time. Within the first hour of her life, she had already stolen the hearts of both her parents and all of her aunties, an impressive feat in itself. 

 

Debbie and Lou considered the superiority of their firstborn daughter often. Which may sound a bit ridiculous, based on the fact that she was barely six months old, but there was little doubt in either parent’s mind that she would be anything less than a world renown badass; a genius of unparalleled caliber. 

 

For example, at this given moment, Lou was lying on her stomach directly across from the soft baby in the yellow pajamas, who was supposed to be playing with the toys strewn across her mat, enjoying her tummy time. The girl was, of course, disinterested in common baby toys, and was instead staring unwaveringly into her blonde mother’s eyes, again attempting telepathic communication. 

 

“Lou, she’s never going to advance her motor skills if you’re gonna stare at her the whole time.” Debbie sighs as she walks into the room, gleaming sweat from her morning run. 

 

“Motor skills? Deborah, we’re so far beyond that! She’s communicating with a flicker of her eyes!” She exclaims, although she does move off the floor and onto the couch, still keeping a close eye on their infant, who now looks up to make eye contact with her Mama, who leans down with a smile to place a kiss on the her fuzzy brown head before joining Lou on the couch. 

 

“A telepathic baby, huh?” Debbie asks, leaning into the space Lou creates for her in lanky arms. “What’s she saying now?” She asks, laughing as their girl shifts her attention to trying to find her own feet behind her. 

 

“She feels trapped by the crushing weight of her schedule. Wants more flexibility around morning naptime.” Lou murmurs, breaking into a smile only after Debbie laughs. 

 

“Maybe we can talk about the specifics of her routine more once I remember what it’s like to sleep through the night.” Debbie comments, before moving off the couch to lift their daughter up off the mat and into her arms, much to the baby’s delight, before rejoining her wife on the couch. “Right?” She asks Mia, who giggles with the attention. “Don’t you want Mama and Baba to sleep again?” She asks, leaning over her chubby face, enclosing the baby in a curtain of long brown hair before peppering her face with kisses and leaning back to start her late morning feeding so she could go down for her nap. 

 

When Mia was born, Debbie and Lou hadn’t really talked much about what the baby would call either of them, so naturally, being the driving force she was already trained to be, Mia had decided for them. A few weeks ago she called Debbie “Mama” for the first time, and though she wouldn’t say it on command, she had been peppering it into her normal babbling throughout the last month or so. At first, they thought “Baba” had just been another part of the brilliant unintelligible sounds their daughter loved to make, until one night, Lou walked into the nursery after Debbie had been trying to put her down for the better part of an hour, and their daughter stretched out her arms and simply called out for her Baba.

 

The rest of the girls had all gotten a kick out of the phrase, abandoning the old “Mom and Dad” for “Mom and Baba”, or another favorite, “Mom and Bob”. At first, Debbie had been more upset than Lou, reprimanding the girls every time they teased her about the term. After one particularly grueling series of nights where it seemed nobody in the loft would ever get a full night’s sleep again, Debbie had really laid into Constance about encouraging Mia to call Lou that. She hit it hard enough that Constance felt the need to go to Lou and apologize, and although Lou appreciated the apology and wished just as much that their brats stopped calling her Bob as much as she had wished they would stop calling her Dad, she explained to Lou, and to Debbie later, that she didn’t mind Mia calling her Baba. It was special, something unique to them, and the feeling of her daughter recognizing her and calling out for her for the first time was a memory so precious in Lou’s heart that she didn’t want to change any part of it. At this explanation, Debbie accepted it, and the terms Mama and Baba were cemented into their families mold. 

 

Once she’s done eating, Debbie hands the baby to Lou so she can bring her upstairs to the nursery and Debbie can shower. She rolls her eyes a little as she hears Lou cross paths with Daphne who has to fawn over the baby everytime she sees her, and considering they all still live in the loft for some reason, she sees her quite a lot. She turns the water on just as Daphne starts trying to get Mia to say “Auntie Daph” again, thankful for the high water pressure which almost completely drowns out the actresses pronounced baby voice. 

 

It’s not that they didn’t appreciate all the girls being in their lives and their daughter’s life--because they did. All six women served as excellent models of women not taking any shit from men, which was an important lesson that Lou and Debbie were very adamant that their daughter learn before she got to kindergarten. They both just wished that they had set up some more boundaries in their lives. Debbie smiled to herself as she remembered the time last week when Lou had finally managed to get all her clothes off before the baby started crying, when Constance, Amita, and Daphne had burst through the door, trying to get them to settle an argument about whose turn it was to do the dishes. The look of fear in the girls’ eyes as Lou had told them off almost had Debbie crying laughing, but her own annoyance gave way as they resumed their previous activities, only to have Rose knock something over in her and Daphne’s room, which of course woke up the *finally* sleeping baby. 

 

If you’re getting a sense of a theme here, concerning the sleeping habits of one Mia Ocean, you’ve got good reason. To Debbie and Lou, their baby was absolutely perfect. She had the softest fuzzy tufts of golden brown hair, the most knowing hazel eyes. Her skin was so soft, her laugh so sweet, and her body so tiny and warm that for the first time in her life Lou thought she might thank some sort of womanly power for giving them this child. (She soon after realized that womanly power was named Deborah, and she’s thanked her every day since). Her personality was already so defined, she was strong and smart but gentle and loving. She loved cuddling but also was happy to play and explore on her own. So yes, she was, somehow, perfect. They just wished she would sleep a little more. 

 

Honestly, Lou wasn’t even sure it was healthy for a baby to spend this much time awake. She certainly didn’t feel good and she hadn’t been getting a healthy amount of sleep since early childhood. She stared down at her daughter in her crib, rubbing small slow circles on her belly, silently praying that she would fall asleep soon. Mia, for her part, had also been awake for close to 20 straight hours and seemed perfectly content to laugh up at her Baba’s misfortune. 

 

The crazy thing about it was she didn’t even cry that much. Sure sometimes when she was feeling overtired or just grumpy, or when nobody was listening to her tell a great story in a language only she could understand, but even now, she wasn’t crying. She was just...awake. All. The. Time. Debbie and Lou had developed a few tricks over the past six months that got her to sleep fairly quickly, but the past night none of them had worked. There had been tears on all ends. 

 

Just as Lou was about to give up, Debbie walked into the nursery, smelling like orchids and vanilla from her shower. 

 

“Lets give this another try.” She sighs, handing off an old flannel from one of their drawers to Lou and lifting up the baby, who was now starting to fuss again, sensing that someone was trying to trick her into sleeping. 

 

Debbie placed a comforting kiss on the back of a soft head, before placing their daughter down on the changing table in the corner of the room, removing her old yellow pajamas, and giving her a fresh diaper and a new pair of snug footie pajamas with pineapples on them, just to keep her feeling fresh and comfortable. Moving slowly still, Debbie cradled the baby with one hand while Lou helped wrap the flannel snugly around her little body, which served to both distract her from moving and give her a comforting feeling. The flannel served to keep their girl asleep longer, because it was soft and it smelled like her Mama and Baba, offering a feeling of maximum comfort. Next, Lou wordlessly turned the light off, the light cloth curtains offering a comforting level of sunlight from the morning rays, and she sat down on the rocking chair in the corner of the room, opening her arms and guiding Debbie, who had slowly moved Mia up to rest against her chest, onto her lap. 

 

In this position, Mia was close to both her mothers at the same time, and she fed of the warmth of both their bodies, and the love that was almost palpable between the three of them. They sat in this position usually for as long as it took their daughter to fall asleep, or until it became too clear that she wasn’t ready for bed. This morning they seemed lucky, as all their tricks seemed to have work on their probably exhausted baby, and she was asleep in ten minutes. Debbie and Lou for their part had nearly fallen asleep themselves, but lasted long enough to get up slowly and place their daughter in her crib. They tiptoed out of the room, thankful again that they were sneaky thieves, and shut the door ever so gently, waiting outside for a couple seconds to ensure they had made a quiet and successful escape. 

 

After a minute or so, Lou made eye contact with Debbie. Staring into familiar hazel eyes she whispered: 

 

“Do you think we really have gone soft?” 

 

Debbie smiles and huffs out a short laugh, allowing her wife to pull her in and deliver a sound victory kiss to her lips before she replies. 

 

“Yeah. Probably.” Debbie says with a smile as she leads her wife a couple doors down the hall to their room, littered with breast pumps and baby toys, so they can go to bed at 10:30 AM. 

 

Worth it. 


End file.
